Slovenia- Spring Holiday Part 3 of 5

So, we're at the half way mark. Spring is starting to set in with sporadic showers and blushes of blue sky.
We Eurail it up to Slovenia via an 8 minute train changeover in Zagreb that would impress the toughest "Amazing Race" competitors and are greeted by the most spectacular green countryside we have seen in a long time, in fact, you could say, ever.
The railway curled itself around the magnificent towering alpine region of southern Slovenia, following the incredibly blue Sava River (I think that is the name anyway). After about 8 hours train ride we found ourselves in Ljubljana (pronounced Loob-lana). After only reading the brief paragraph or two from our massive, but information light Lonely Planet- Europe on a Shoestring Guide we were not sure what we would find. After locating our awesome hostel (Hostel Most is case you ever go) with room that overlooked the river we went out to discover a beautiful little city. The centre of the city it feels like a perpetual Sunday afternoon as most of the inhabitants seem to be students with a lot of time to drink coffee and eat ice-cream at the incredible number of riverside cafes. It also helps that the centre is pedestrianised too so, even when in the centre of the city, it is amazingly peacefull and quiet. It was a shame we only spent a day and a half here as we could have spent a lot longer, but we enjoyed every minute of it and would easily go back.

GREEN!

We found this little bit of genius not far from the Horse Burger joint.

We were both a bit scared to try the horse burger, but Andy did have a "lamb" kebab. I wasn't convinced it was just lamb.

This came from the door of a the castle postioned high on a hill in the middle of the city. I just thought it was a cool door feature.

The Moonscape of Gorome

And finally, at last, the final installment in the holiday pics of Turkey.

In this last encounter, we take you around Goreme, in the centre of Turkey. We came across this spectacular moonscape at 6.30 in the am as the sun was rising over the rose, golden and terracotta cave houses.
We were in this beautiful little town for 4 days and managed to get up-graded from the hostel to a brand new hotel cave room with our own bathroom!! With proper HOT shower!!
Anyway, once again we will let the pictures do the talking.

Cave houses
People did and still do live in these caves. I think they originally lived in here to hide from waring Ottomans, Christians, etc.
This man was collecting wood in the river. I had to snap it quickly, don't think he really wanted his photo taken.

Me on the shittest bike in the world, the seat moved from side to side when I rode along in one of only 2 gears I had to chose from, high or higher. This was a rare moment of smiling, as it was one of the few down hill moments. Despite being promised it was fine to ride on a bike, the route we chose had a good 5 km straight uphill, on rough tarmac with massive coaches pushing us off the road every 30 seconds. But thats Turkey for ya.

The streets of Goreme







































































This was our hotel room, they brought down the armchairs when they saw we were actually using the fireplace. Lovely.
Turkey we love you.

Panorama Extravaganza! Part 2: Romania.

Part 2 of our Panoramic Extravaganza brings us to Romania. Click to enlarge. Leave coments people. We want to hear your thoughts.

We love you, who ever you are.





This pic is from Romanian county side where we stopped for a picnic. It was quite picturesque.





Rasov Castle, just down the road from Dracula's castle is a great secluded fortress. It was one of my favorites as you could explore through the ruins. In the surounding area they filmed Cold Moutain.





This is a shot from the ski-resort town of Sinia. After walking from 1400 metre to 2000 metres we relaxed with a pint. Nice. We had an hour and a half to do it in before the last lift went down. Any later we'd have to climb down the entire mountain. Couldn't be that bad, you say? All well and good except below 1400 metres was a wild bear sanctuary.








This shot is taken from the Romanian Parliament building (a building that cost 3.3 Billion Euros to build 10 years ago when the rest of the county wasn't even getting their ration of bread. Sounds like grounds for revolution to me).

Oh! Also, a guy in a baby suit.

The Cruise

Here are some photo's of our 4 day 3 night cruise. Andrew did mention it in the earlier posts so I won't blather on too much. So here you are:

This guy was a pain in the arse, he came around right before lunch with a little old lady in his boat making pancakes and wouldn't leave until somebody bought something!
Just some of the awesome food we were feed three times a day.

This is what we woke up to on the second day.

But grey skies cleared up

My favourite kitten in the pretty harbour village of Kas, where we stopped on the 3rd day for the morning.
About 15 minutes later it poured torrential rain!

The water was 25 degrees here!


Our fearless stoner captain (on the right) Ramazan and his faithfull skipper, Tur Gui (pronounced Tour Guide,
minus the d sound)

Arrrr. Lovely.

Turkish Delight - Part 1 (Istanbul to Fethiye)

Here is the first of a 3 parter on our time in Turkey.
This part covers the few days we spent in Istanbul, Selcuk (home of ancient ruins of Ephesus) and Fethiye.

This was inside the Süleymaniye Mosque, Istanbul. This mosque is only used for special occasions.

Real Locum (Turkish Delight)

Istanbul

One day it pissed down in Istanbul and in true Turkish style there were Umbrella salesmen hovering around quicker than you can say "cats and dogs". This was a box of umbrellas that were bought and sold in seconds.

Genius.

The Library in Epheses. Not bad bit of ruin that.

This is Woofio. My favourite dog we met for the whole trip. This was on a backroad in Selcuk.

The harbour in Fethiye.

Panorama Extravaganza!

You heard me. We've just been putting all of our panoramic shots together using a niffty program. They look sweet. These ones are from Hungary.

First two are from opposite sides of Budapest's length of the Danube river.

The second is from a castle in a town between Budapest and the Romanian border.

Bulgarian

Here are some of our photo's from Bulgaria. We spent 7 days in this small nation and discovered many things, including the World Arm Wrestling Championships!
Anyway I'll let the pictures do the talking:

This was a pretty cool fence I came across in Velinko Tarnovo. The faces of most of the soldiers had been smashed in, so that it looked like a skeleton. Quite spooky..

Literally a yellow brick road in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria

We came across these leaflets everywhere. They are posters to remember dead relatives, which people seem to put up yearly for their loved ones.

The spectacular view from the mountain we hiked up in Bansko, the ski resort town, which is currently undergoing major constructions by British investors. This place would be amazing to see in 12 months.

Wowser!! Check out those guns!

The one armed arm warmer on a MASSIVE Ukranian fellow.

And game time!

The hillside town of Velinko Tarnovo in the early morning mists. Beautiful.

The streets of Velinko Tarnovo